Itinerant Muse

Cranberry Salsa ~ Spices up a Thanksgiving feast

Tex-Mex Cranberry Salsa

I developed this recipe from reading a combination of recipes from the magazine, New Jersey Countryside, and Tex-Mex cookbooks.  As you may know, NJ has probably one of the largest cranberry bogs in the U.S. (third only to Wisconsin, my home state, and Massachusetts) and cranberries could almost be considered the state fruit. Since my children have never like cranberries and I grew up always having cranberry sauce and my grandmother's delicious cranberry pudding on Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was constantly challenged every Thanksgiving to create a recipe that they would like. They love this cranberry salsa!

Serves Two cups

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped sweet onion, like a Vidalia
• 1 fresh jalapeno, seeded, deveined & finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic smashed, peeled & chopped
• 1 1/2 cup fresh cranberries blanch to slightly soften
• 1/2 small juicing orange, scrubbed, unpeeled, quartered & seeded
• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
• kosher or sea salt to taste

1. Combine onion, jalapeno & garlic in food processor. Pulse to coarsely chop.
2. Add cranberries that have been slightly blanched to soften, orange quarters, vinegar, sugar & orange juice. Pulse in food processor until uniformly chunky. Stir in cilantro and rosemary. Season to taste with salt.
3. Rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. preferably one hour to allow flavors to meld and develop.
4. Cover tightly and refrigerate salsa until thoroughly chilled, 2 hours or more.  Garnish with a sprig of rosemary.
5. Covered and refrigerated, cranberry salsa will keep nicely for up to 10 days and can be frozen for up to two months as well.

* For holiday or cocktail parties, serve as an hors d'oeuvres with sweet potato or tortilla chips  for   dipping.

Happy Thanksgiving and good health and happiness to all!

Pepitas - pumpkin seeds are nutritious little treasures

Pepitas - pumpkin seeds are nutritious little treasures

Posted using ShareThis

A Little Coddling for Eggs

 

Who can identify this beautiful porcelain object?  It is an egg coddler similar to the ones I received as a wedding gift 40-some years ago.

After I mastered the art of cooking coddled eggs, the dish became my father's favorite breakfast food whenever he came to visit ~ two coddled eggs semi-hard, with a dollop of butter, salt & pepper served with an English muffin.

Imagine my surprise when my daughter 40  years later told me her significant other had cooked her coddled eggs in a tomato no less!

Eggs with tomatoes (Uova A Piatto Con Pomodori)

2 tsp. olive oil, 4 large tomatoes, pinch of dried oregano, fresh flat-leaf parsley chopped, salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush olive oil on an ovenproof dish. Cut tops of tomatoes off and scoop out seeds and some flesh. Sprinkle insides with a little salt, place upside down on a paper towel and drain for about 10 minutes. Season inside of tomatoes with oregano, salt and pepper.  Divide olive oil among tomatoes and place them in prepared dish.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Remove dish from oven and break an egg into each tomatoe, return dish to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes.  Garnish with parsley and serve.  Serves four.

Credit to www.dancosta.typepad.com  who  followed the recipe from the Silver Spoon.